National Eye Donation Fortnight

National Eye Donation Fortnight is a 15 days campaign starting from the 25th of August and ending on the 8th of September. It is completely an Indian National event run under the 'National Programme for Control of Blindness'. As it would be clear from its name, it is a campaign to motivate people to be an eye donor. Blindness is a very major problem for both developing countries as well as developed countries. The National Eye Donation Fortnight is such a campaign which is mainly focused on removing this problem as far as possible from our country.

National Eye Donation Fortnight 2020

The National Eye Donation Fortnight
in the year 2020 is, as usual, starting from 25 August which is Tuesday and
will end on 8 September 2020, which is also Tuesday. It is celebrated every
year with great zeal, and we hope for the same in the year 2020. It is a great
day to restore the lost vision of millions of people in India. Now we are
waiting to see how the nation is going to celebrate the 35th
National Eye Donation Fortnight. The theme for the National Eye Donation
Fortnight for 2020 has not yet been declared.

Brief History

The National Eye Donation Fortnight
is a very important day in the medical world and for those who have lost their
eyesight. The event of National Eye Donation Fortnight was started in the year
1985 by the Ministry of Health under the Government of India. It was launched
by seeing the lack of eye donors in India.

It is celebrated every year on a
grand level with a different theme each year. The celebration of National Eye
Donation Fortnight is going on successfully since 1985, and we are going to
observe its 35th celebration in the year 2020. With a view to observe some
positive changes, we hope for more number of people to participate in the
campaign than the previous years.

Ways of Celebration/Activities

The National Eye Donation Fortnight
is such an event which has a nationwide celebration in every part of India,
comprising the urban and rural areas of every state. The celebration of the
campaign includes various activities, campaigns, drives, rallies, awareness
programmes, and many other things.

It is perhaps the most important 15
days of the year for the various Eye Donation Banks in India. These banks
organize campaigns in many places to raise awareness among people regarding the
benefits of eye donation. They also bust the myths of the people about eye
donation. These eye donation awareness campaigns work as a mass awareness
programme.

The aspired individuals also work to motivate others to donate their eyes after their death. For it, they use multimedia, print media or online services etc. They also participate in eye donation campaigns and register to donate their eyes.

The Eye Banking Association and other similar organizations together carry some eye donation camps. These camps are also joined by the ophthalmologists. They communicate with people and tell them the positive changes of eye donation. The student of schools, colleges and medical institutions organize rallies to aware people about eye donation. Some of these rallies mainly constitute only children because have the most capability to aware people towards eye donation.

Objectives and Significance

As we all know, the eyes are the part
of our body which can be donated after one's death as well. There are millions
of people in India who need eyes to be transplanted. Even many of them are
ready for donating their eyes, but the problem arises in the absence of
awareness among them.

The objective of launching the National Eye Donation Fortnight was to make people aware of the procedures, benefits and future aspects of eye donation for the people. Since our healthy eyes can provide with the vision to a blind person after our death so we can understand how important eye donation is. Since there are 15 consecutive days dedicated to the donation of eyes, these are the days when people of the entire nation focus on the same problem, hence finding a solution becomes easier for us.

An important objective of the National Eye Donation Fortnight is to lower the gap between the demand and supply of eye donation. The Eye Donation Fortnight has successfully decreased this gap, and it comes out to be the importance of observing the event nationwide.

Themes of the National Eye Donation Fortnight

The National Eye Donation Fortnight comes every year with a different theme to focus on a specific side of the National Eye Donation Fortnight. The themes for some of the recent years are given below:

The theme for the year 2013 was ‘Motivation for the Eye
Donation’.

The theme for the year 2014 was ‘Eye Donation – A Gift of
Sight’.

The theme for the year 2015 was ‘Mission to Vision’.

The theme for the year 2016 was not declared.

The theme for the year 2017 was ‘Joy in Giving – Donate Eyes’

The theme for the year 2018 was ‘Don’t Leave a Will, Leave a
Vision’.

The theme for the year 2019 was ‘Light up a Life – Donate
Your Eyes’.

Why the Event was Established

Loosing of vision in the human being is one of the most critical problems now a day. There are around nine million people in India suffering from the blindness. The more problematic than it is the wide gap between the need and availability of the eyes in India. The medical science says that more than 80% cases of blindness in India can be cured by the transplantation of healthy eyes.

There are enough sources and
facilities for the eye transplantation are available in India. All we need to
have is the awareness among people regarding it. The lack of knowledge of
awareness is what caused the nation to launch the National Eye Donation
Fortnight.

Voice of Youths/Our Duties

Since the eye donation is
done for a social cause, every individual has a responsibility towards the
people in India. As a citizen of India, there are many things through which all
also can contribute on the day to make it reach its objective. Some of them
are;

During our daily routines, we meet many such people who are willing to donate their eyes but have no proper information about it. We can provide them with complete information and help them in donating their eyes.

On National Eye Donation Fortnight, we can contact any school, college or other academic institutions and ask them to have a special class so that we can aware the younger generation in a large population.

Donating your eyes on National Eye Donation Fortnight can inspire others including your relatives and friends to do so. In this way, you will not only influence others but will also make them donate their eyes too.

Almost every individual uses a social media platform now a day. Inspiring them through this platform is also a useful method to motivate a large group of people, even far from us.

35 Years of National Eye
Donation Fortnight

The National Eye Donation
Fortnight has gone through a successful 35 years’ journey. In this period, the
nation has gone through many positive changes, which could have become possible
because of National Eye Donation Fortnight.

Before 1985, there was a huge demand for eye transplantation. It had increased the number of blinds in the country. There were many people who could donate their eyes, but they didn’t in the lack of knowledge.

After launching the event, there has been a continuous increase in the number of eye transplantation in India. The number of eye donor has also increased with a great margin in this period.

Though the number of supply of eyes has not yet met the number of demand, the gap is constantly reducing bringing hope for the future of the nation.

Conclusion

The National Eye Donation Fortnight is such a campaign that is made for the goodwill of those people who have not seen the colours of the world yet. It is made for us so our contribution to making it successful matters a lot. Our every single step matters, depends on when we want to have it. Always motivate others, and pledge to donate your eyes because they can make one’s life worth living.

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Anand Kumar Srivastava has completed graduation in Statistics. He is a content writer by his passion. Anand likes exploring and writing on such a topic that can help students and aware them of historical and statistical truth as well. He says that writing is a part of his daily habit and he has written for many other reputed portals too.